396TEXT-BOOK OF ZOOLOGYof leathery-brown colour. It likes warmth, and therefore is fond oftaking up its quarters in bakehouses, kitchens, mills, etc. Flour and allkinds of domestic refuse form the food of this familiar insect. Accordingto popular superstition, the sound of the cricket, like that of severalother animals (give examples), forebodes the death of the hearer. Group 2 : Gressorial Orthoptera (Gressoria), Family 4: Praying Insects (Mantidae), The Praying Mantis (Mantis religiosa) is a fantastic-looking insect,met \iith in Southern Euiope and even,though laiely, m Southern GeimanyThough of laptoiial habits, it is a slowlymoving cieatuie It is but pooily adaptedfoi flight, and cieeps lazily along on its PiiAYiNf; Mantis. (Natural size.) W., Female, which has seized a prey ; M., a flying male.remarkably long middle and hind legs (gressorial legs) ; hence it has tocapture its food in a different fashion. Motionless the insect sits in thegrass, where, on account of its green colour, it can only with difficulty berecognised (protective and deceptive colouring). The head is small,but held loftily erect by the first thoracic somite (prothorax), which hasthe form of a long neck, so that the robber's field of vision is veryextensive; at the same time the fore-legs are raised, apparently as in